UK stocks climb Wall Street ladder

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* FTSE 100 up 0.2 pct

* FTSE 250 rises 0.7 pct

* Earthport jumps after Visa’s takeover offer

* Plus500 the best mid-cap performer after trading update

Dec 27 (Reuters) - British stocks opened higher on Thursday, in line with most equity markets after Wall Street bounced back dramatically after upbeat U.S. data and the Trump administration’s effort to shore up confidence helped ease concerns about an economic slowdown.

The FTSE 100 added 0.2 percent after initially rising as much as 0.6 percent, while the FTSE 250 mid-cap index gained 0.7 percent by 0820 GMT, sparking small hopes of a late Santa rally that has eluded investors all month.

The Dow Jones shot over 1,000 points on Wednesday, with all three main U.S. indexes recording their biggest intraday percentage gains in almost a decade by the end of the session.

London’s bourse was also supported by a rise in mining stocks, buoyed by higher copper prices on the back of a rally in financial and commodity markets.

The mid-cap index, which is more domestically focused, benefited from a 7 percent jump in online trading platform Plus500 that led finance stocks higher.

Plus500 rose after saying it expects its 2018 results to top market expectations thanks in part to market volatility in recent months.

AIM-listed shares of Earthport Plc, a provider of payment services, roughly quadrupled in value to match the 30-pence-a-share buyout offer from U.S. payments firm Visa Inc . (Reporting by Muvija M and Shashwat Awasthi in Bengaluru, editing by Louise Heavens)